


Almost Magic

by blcwriter



Series: Write a New Alphabet [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Magic!Stiles, Meta, Nightmares, PTSD, Pack Cuddles, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Pre-Slash, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He was out the door and into the woods before he knew it (note to self: research effects of magic on  passage of time), keeping the magic at bay, using it give himself some light on the path as he jogged, ran, ran away from the house, from his room, from the window he locked but still got cracked open because werewolves.  He wasn’t trying to let the magic push, just trying to keep at his usual seven minutes a mile as he looked, followed the tug as the magic he did not understand, not at all, but somehow he believed and now it believed in him right back and here he was, late afternoon of (X + some days after killing (how many of the alpha pack)+ how many remaining, mental note: call Lydia, solve this equation, divide by how many of Derek’s pack could be relied upon, integrate Peter) so he didn’t burn down the town because he was a neurotic sleeper.  </i>
</p><p> </p><p> <i>Fantastic.  Maybe wolves could function on instinct.  Stiles wanted some goddamned handles on this amorphous shit that was the energy roiling through him.  </i></p><p> <i>Spark, his ass.  Deaton was the lyingest liar ever.  This was a goddamned unstable supernova.  This was-- magical astrophysics for baby witches.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Magic

**Author's Note:**

> In the immediate aftermath of dealing with the alphas, Stiles thinks over and avoids thinking over some things. There's some interactions with Boyd, Isaac & Erica, Allison & Peter, and Derek. Some mulling on magic, which Stiles does not understand and needs to, because apparently? Magic? That's now his thing? And he has some shitty dreams, so he goes for a run, and has a heart-to-heart conversation (of sorts) with Derek. 
> 
> It's been a long couple of days.
> 
> Stiles' POV is even more interesting inside his head than when you're listening to him talk from outside. Take that for whatever warning it's worth.

“So, there was a wild animal attack in the old mines last night. And a fire. Which burnt itself out. And was contained in a weird, ashlike circle that just poof, disappeared, when I stepped inside, even though when the rest of my deputies went inside, it was fine. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say lightning had struck those bodies inside the tunnels, except there weren’t any storms. Outside the tunnels.”

The fact that his dad’s voice was quiet and his hand on Stiles’ shoulder was gentle did not change the fact that Stiles’ head pounded like the roars of ten (now-dead) angry alphas—and okay, sure, fine, the gig was up, someone had told him, but ugh, fuck all the old gods, really? And what was that bit about the mountain ash? Fuckity, was dad magic too? 

It took, like, three tries to get his mouth moving. Ugh. Potions were all fine and dandy, but Deaton’s idea of training and Stiles’? Not matching up, if this is how he was going to feel. 

“It’s got to be, like, five in the morning,” he managed. Shit, he sounded like it, that was a physical state, “and if you know that much then Deaton’ll help you figure out how to write the rest of it up, just, ow, Jesus, dad, I’ve got a magic migraine like you wouldn’t believe, this shit isn’t easy, lemme go back to sleep until I can, ugh,” he groaned, trying to open an eye and immediately plastering a hand back over his face because _light, OW_ “see straight, that, and, y’know, my own voice doesn’t make me sick to my stomach.”

“I have always found your voice melodious, Stiles,” he heard, and Boyd’s basso growl, Peter’s defensive “It’s a compliment, really,” and then the way he shut up when Erica’s growl joined Boyd’s—

“Boyd is my favorite right now.” He lowered his voice, because ow. Voices. Ow. Lightning, for the record? Hurt when you threw it. Channeled it. Whatever it was that he’d done.

He rolled over onto his side so he could at least try and look at his dad without the stupid overhead light right in his eyes, but man, he felt like he’d gone another six rounds with… yeah. Bad.

Still, though. Dad.

He creaked an eye open, the other one insisting that yes, this magic shit sucked, thank you, Stiles was an idiot to put his body through this, because it was telling him voluntary movements be damned, one eye was going to stay shut and Stiles had better get back to sleep _ASAP, sucka._

His dad looked tired. Worried as all-fuck. And yet kind of relieved?

Huh.

Not what Stiles had expected. Spanish Inquisition, etcetera. His throat hurt. His chest, too, like maybe he was growing a tumor under his sternum. He closed his eyes. Tightly. Had he mentioned his head hurt?

Dad’s hand was cool and dry when he pressed it to Stiles’ forehead—it was all the headache that made Stiles flinch back, because ow, channeling lightning ow, being a spark apparently required more practice and Stiles was toast. And now he was repeating himself. 

“We’ll talk later about how it’s supposed to be my job to protect you, kid,” his dad said. “I know… well, I guess I don’t,” and no, Stiles was not going to look, no, not at that tone in his dad’s voice, that was a half-bottle of Johnnie Black, that was what that tone meant, but then his dad kind of wheezed and sputtered before he kept talking and Stiles totally did the little-kid fetal curl and did the I'm-not-looking-and-I'm-curled-up-small thing to hide from this conversation because yes, that was what he was going to do. No one had ever accused Stiles of being consistent at being mature, and today wasn't going to be the day he was going to start.

“But… anyway. Just. _Stiles_ ” and then his dad was hugging him, hard, and his voice was a rasp, “I’m your dad first. I’ll always give you a match if you have to light someone on fire.”

There were—lots of things to not say to that, because he wouldn’t, couldn’t, couldn't, no, _not him too,_ even if Dad wasn’t just in some kind of accepting Stockholm kind of shock right now, even if this was somehow magically somehow ok and it wasn’t even something Stiles had tried to believe could possibly happen—but—his head hurt and he was tired and they had killed most? All? Peter hadn’t known how many there were, no one had, details, they mattered, but still, dealt death and all that handjive to an alpha pack last night and no one from their pack had died and everyone had come out with pretty much only the same level of emotional scars they’d gone in with, and oh, god, Stiles fucking hurt and he was not prepared to deal with feelings. Even good ones. Even ones that meant maybe his dad might not hate him some day. Because there was still danger. Lots. And it was shit they didn't teach you in sheriff school.

But too much. Too much hugging. Feelings. He hurt. Dad needed to let go. Words would be good.

“Okay.” He’d better reciprocate the manly Stilinski hug, too, even if he felt like run-over, macerated jello.

His dad exhaled when Stiles hugged him back. Said something. Eased up a bit on the squeezing. Which, good. 

Fact: it wasn’t okay. It hadn’t been, it probably wouldn’t be for a long time, but it wasn’t really a lie, not like he’d been telling. That his dad was sitting here not freaking out in a room full of healing werewolves while Stiles got over acting like a human lightning rod— well. He could make at least one promise. “I’ll try.” His voice was still all slurred and fucked-up sounding, like he was on a time delay or some shit. But trying? That much he could say was true.

“Sheriff,” Deaton was saying, and Stiles made grabby hands at his dad and got a pat on the shoulder before Stiles was getting—huh, nobody’d tucked him into bed in forever, he’d done that more for his dad since Mom died than he could even remember his parents ever doing for him, and then mostly because dad was a couple of sheets to the wind and letting your dad crack his neck on the stairs was a shitty way to let yourself become a complete, total orphan. But someone who felt like Isaac was shouldering under the blankets on the exam table, their voice soft and—oh, he was doing the pain mojo thing, good, that potion wasn’t working so much anymore and…

\--

The next time Stiles woke up, he was lying in a pile of smelly wool blankets amongst too many werewolves on top of a cold cement floor. He was not on the couch where he’d passed out on Deaton, or on the exam table where his Dad had woken him up. Apparently there had been a lot of pass-the-Stilinski played while he was unconscious, since he was now on the floor. 

His head still hurt, but not like before—it was off-center, and he could think straight-ish, around the smell of hot supernatural bodies snoring around him, that and the hum of the node right underneath Deaton’s clinic. 

Ugh.

So apparently he’d blasted something inside himself a little bit open with all of that lightning. He hadn’t been able to feel the magic that clearly before. As he lay there and his head pounded, his pulse beat in time with the magic pulsing under the clinic. Holy shit. He bit his lip, felt his heartrate go back to _human_ , and elbowed his way to sitting up as the stinky teen wolves around him snorfled and whined.

The vet was sneaky? Resourceful? It felt like a big reservoir, but—it felt clean? Open? So. Not something to worry about, just. Resourceful, then. Deaton’s crypticness could still then be chalked up to running with supernatural folk, not harboring evil intentions. Stiles thought for a moment about trying to pull some of the power himself, see if it would make him feel a little less exhausted, but—his head throbbed and he probably didn’t have the focus to figure out what he wanted enough to make anything count. So. Boring human healing it was.

“How do you go from unconscious to turbo-thinking so fast?” Erica’s mutter was grumpy, and Stiles turned around, rubbing his eyes as he turned and shoved at whichever werewolf was grumbling about not having Stiles as a pillow this moment—Isaac? That whine was higher than Boyd’s.

“It’s a gift, baby,” he managed, then untangled himself from the pile, because ugh. Werewolves were touchy-feely and Stiles _got it,_ he did, there was some werewolf variant on Maslow's hierarchy that included smells and cuddles, but werewolves were touchy and they were hot, and these were not always compliments. Boyd grunted and looked up at Stiles as he stumbled and whacked the exam table behind him with his ass but—eh. Minor bruising.

The clang made his head throb a bit, but all of Derek’s little wolflings (minus Peter, where had he crept off to, last night he’d stayed around long enough to let Erica clean him, Derek too, and that had been… something, the both of them not looking at one another while that had been the thing that was happening) but just kind of blinked up at him like they didn’t get why the strange human would ever want to drag himself out of the smelly pile of old blankets and battle-worn werewolves who’d only licked each other clean and then slept on a cold concrete floor when, you know, he could be home. In his bed. Or trying to figure out of he was grounded forever. Or seeing if there was some kind of real Hogwarts he could run away to, because shit was getting a little too real. Stiles could use a vacation. And if this magic shit wasn’t all lightning and death, that might be ok.

Was Quidditch a thing? Could he make it a thing?

Erica tipped her head at the main part of the clinic. “Allison’s talking to Deaton. I think she’s waiting for you.” She blinked, then closed her eyes when Boyd pulled her closer and Isaac rearranged himself and the blankets so the three of them were all cuddled together. There was nothing cute or heartwarming about it at all. The blankets were gross, the room was cold and smelt of dog piss, and the fact of it was that even with Stiles’ help last night, once Boyd and Erica had realized Derek had wanted them back, they’d fought like, well, _wild dogs_ and all his flash and fire had just been extra. They’d have fought their way out one way or the other, even if Stiles had been kind of necessary to figuring out where they were. And now, well, he was wide awake and everything hurt and he was exhausted, and the werewolves had gone back to snuggling each other since Stiles had extracted himself. Right, then. Time to get going, figure out what to do next.

\--

“Just, just, watch the rpms, okay,” he heard himself say, and he was trying not to yell or cry or anything mean because seriously? Katniss freaking Everdeen, and she could not drive a stick, and he knew she’d had a rough year, but so had Stiles, and it was his Jeep. His baby. His Jeep. Allison Argent was not wrecking his Jeep. “Maybe you should pull over and let me drive.”

“Stiles, you’re shaking and you can’t see straight.” Of course, Allison didn’t sound that steady, either, but she was all “it’s just a flesh wound” and had slept in an actual bed. And couldn’t drive a stick. Could not drive a stick. How was this Stiles’ life? She could teach him to shoot a sniper rifle and other assorted methods of death, but she didn't know how to drive a stick. The Argents were the pinnacle of fucked-up families. Period. Stiles was calling it, now.

“If you kill my Jeep, me wrecking us on the side of the road when there’s a half freaking mile left to the house is the last thing we’ll have to worry about.” Which meant, of course, that they both screamed when Peter knocked on the window, because they were just actors in some stupid horror drama, goddamnit, and having survived the main maiming, it was time for the denoument spatter. And then Allison screamed again, and took her foot off the clutch, and Stiles’ baby choked. Sputtered. Died.

Peter winced, looking tired. He did not flex his claws.

Stiles wasn’t sure which was better—that Peter looked tired, or that he, at least, seemed embarrassed by Allison’s lack of mastery over the standard transmission. He noted to self: make Derek teach the pack to drive sticks in case of the zombie apocalypse or an EMP.

“I was patrolling and Stiles, your engine really does need some work, I could smell it three miles into the woods. If you’d like, I’ll drop you both off at Stiles’ house and then bring the Jeep to Boyd’s uncle’s garage?”

Allison was already slithering out of the driver’s seat and into the back, which—okay. Guess she and Peter had bonded at some point last night while Stiles was conked out. Opportunistic and hungry, murderous old wolf (or just pragmatic and tired of listening to teenagers bitch, Stiles could be persuaded) that he was, Peter climbed in, looking like a cover model for Eddie Bauer in fleece, hiking boots and ripstop khakis, plus a bitching buffalo plaid flannel rolled up to show off his stupid muscle-y forearms and perfect manicure, because Peter was the very model of the modern metrosexual werewolf. If, y’know, they needed poster boys for maybe reformed bad-boys. Did they make psychotropics for werewolves? Maybe a tea? Mental note.

“Nice shirt,” Stiles muttered, then shoved his jacket back under his head. 

Peter snorted. “I happen to believe in color. Unlike certain alphas. Your plaid addiction may be tragic, Stiles, but at least it’s unique.”

“You were a total grunge kid, weren’t you.” Allison sounded actually curious, and it was the first time Stiles had ever heard her make conversation with Peter aside from, you know, plotting how to kill invading werewolves and the best ways to use Stiles’ magic as part of that, so, go, bonding experiences, woo.

Peter said something that Stiles kind of missed, but that might be because he was gripping the oh-shit handles on the door and trying to stay awake. Just because your friendly-neighborhood ex-alpha saved your Jeep from untimely death did not mean you relaxed vigilance. He could nap once he’d gotten inside and strengthened the wards.

\--

The third time Stiles woke up, he woke up sweating and biting his hand because Stiles fucking Stilinski was not going to wake the neighborhood and whatever werewolves and friendly members of dad's department (he would not put it past his dad to put him under real house arrest) were in the house up with his screams. 

Now, he was learning (books, ugh, he needed to scan that shit, stat) that some dreams were just dreams, and some were memories and some were maybe prophecies that might or might not come true some day. If Deaton would stop being cagey about that dreamwalking book Stiles would figure it out, although there was some space-time shit he figured he was going to have to nail down as well, no matter what Deaton said about belief being enough. 

Belief needed foundations. 

But the fact still remained, Stiles was not going to be the stereotypical wake-up-and-scream-because-he-had-a-bad-dream kid.

Since no one burst into his bedroom, there were no wolves in the house, though that, he could tell because he was alone in the bed. 

Which was something else. None of the pack would explain the cuddling thing. He didn’t mind a bro-hug, and hugging the girls was all cool because they were badass most of the time but it wasn’t like they all weren’t part of the dead and/or absent parents club in one way or the other and the girls had more pressure to act like grownups, sometimes, so Stilinski hugs were a good time-out from that, but—the pack piles of late were. Excessive. Stifling, even. It was. It was nice to have his bed to himself. 

But he was awake, now, and there was a nice convenient black space in his brain to stuff that particular nightmare into, so he did.

And then he realized that not only was he covered with sweat, but he was kind of… glowing.

Shit. 

He was going to have to get a handle on the drawing magical energy thing if he was doing it-- _to defend against motherfucking Gerard in his sleep_ , he acknowledged, because right, go through hell, keep moving-- because once you’d pulled it you kind of had to do something with it, that, or wear yourself out, and well, he was wide awake now and hey. No time like the present to do some training?

Deaton had said there was magic running along the territorial lines, and that if he tried to learn how to look, he should be able to find them. He probably hadn’t meant this soon, but Stiles was awake.

He was out the door, down the road, and into the woods before he knew it (note to self: research effects of magic on perceptions of and/or actual passage of time when filled with and/or using), keeping the magic at bay, using it just to look, See, give himself some light on the path as he jogged, picked up speed, ran, ran away from the house, from his room, from the window he locked but still got cracked open because motherfucking werewolves. He wasn’t trying to let the magic push at his speed, just trying to keep at his usual seven minutes a mile as he looked, followed the tug as the magic he did not understand, not at all, but somehow he believed and now it believed in him right back and here he was, late afternoon of (X + some days after killing (how many were left of the alpha pack, oh shit, oh shit, were there any left)+ how many remaining, mental note: call Lydia, solve this equation, divide by how many of Derek’s pack could be relied upon, integrate Peter) so he didn’t burn down the town because he was a neurotic sleeper. 

Fantastic. Maybe wolves could function on instinct. Stiles wanted some goddamned handles on this amorphous shit that was the energy roiling through him. 

Spark, his ass. Deaton was the lyingest liar ever. This was a goddamned unstable supernova. This was magical astrophysics for baby witches. (Was there a gender-neutral term that wasn't nine thousand words long and stupid?)

If his pulse pounded under his tongue, his throat hurt and his lungs burned as he struggled with breath—well. He was fragile. Breakable. Human. Had been through hell. Kept going, passed go, not gotten $200.00 or the collected quotes of Winston Churchill because fate was a fickle mistress like that. Still. Going. He had gotten his freaked-out ass out of bed to run off his nightmare and do something useful rather than whimper at the ghost of an old man in the dark, because if Stiles could be scared, he could still think most of the time, and finding the magical lay of the territory and keying them to him, to the pack, to people who could be _trusted_ (not Peter, maybe not Lydia, not until he sorted Peter + Lydia out, who, who, who, who), that would be good, something to do. He ran some more. Let the magic tug him along, watched the way it rippled under, over, around the ground, in the air, _did not panic_ because he saw it, _did not panic_ even though he’d left his towel back at the house and he was going to have to write his own hitchiker’s guide for this one, fuck, no Ford Prefect for this. 

Tried to ignore how his feet hit the ground in time with his heartbeat, in time with some rhythm that sounded right, that was the way the magic kind of pulsed and wavered. 

Ran next to the magic stream when he found it, then dodged left when it parted, off up the hill, because Finstock thought even benchwarmers should run suicides and the hills in the Preserve weren’t that bad. Ran as it thinned like a late summer stream, then stretched out like a brook. Ran until it got to the lake and—emptied out. Into a literal reservoir. Where there were.

Hunh.

Second sight (if that’s what it was) was fucking creepy.

“What are you looking at?”

“Naiads. There are naiads in the lake. Did you know that? There are, like, six ley lines dumping into a node under the lake, we ever need to seriously magically nuke something, drown it, this is the place,” he answered, even as he dropped down, sat, flopped onto his back, watched the dusk and the way the sun dipped over the last bit of the lake. “What the hell day is it, even?”

“It’s Sunday.” 

The response was half-lisped, Derek’s wolf-face not yet fully human. He’d known, at some point, that Derek had found him at some point on his run—that he’d been in his wolf-form, but he’d just diverted from whatever wolfy patrol he was doing and fallen into step as Stiles had kept running, following his magical nose or whatever the hell he’d been doing because—he had no idea what was doing.

“Erica and Isaac and Boyd get back to…”

“They’re all at the warehouse. They’re fine.”

“Good. That’s really good.”

Stiles pulled himself up, and stared at the lake some more, something that wasn’t a naiad but was not a fish, was something magic—it flipped a tail at him and he startled. Beside him, Derek jerked, looked at Stiles. 

“What?” he asked, looking around.

“You can’t see them?”

Derek shook his head, his eyes wide as he stared at Stiles, then blinked, red eyes shading back—lake colored, all-water. “They’re faerie, probably. They’re not here. You’re looking at the underworld, though that’s not what they call it. There’s a book at the house. I’ll have Peter give it to you, although…” He didn’t sound happy.

Stiles had a feeling where this was going. “He was the pack’s Singer.” Of course. It all made so much sense, now. Well, not all, but more.

“Why do you hate my uncle?” Derek didn't sound surprised that Stiles knew what werewolves called their witches.

It was an interesting question, of all the questions Derek could possibly have. Not—why did you and my uncle and Allison Argent try to go all A-team on some alphas you weren’t supposed to know about, Stiles, or how did you go from mountain ash to lightning bolts and using power words like alpha wolves could, or even an old Derek classic like what are you doing running alone in my woods. Just—why do you hate my uncle?

Stiles was debating all the layers to the question and the best way to start and which one would be truthful and short and not send him into a panic attack-- but nothing was that easy, was it? Not that it ever had been, Stiles had just been better at denying things before he’d fucked up and listened too long to his Dad’s scanner, that night he’d heard “half a body.”

“It’s not a choice if the only possible outcome is someone ends up getting hurt, even if it’s not you, not at first.”

“He tried to bite you.” Stiles could hear the growl, bitten back, even as he closed his eyes, tried to unsee the magic. He didn’t want to see it right now, not anymore.

“He offered. I said no. He accused me of lying. He was wrong, though probably not for the reasons he thinks. The moment passed, as it were, and then later that night I lit him on fire.”

He didn’t miss Derek’s huff. Who knew what it meant? Amusement? Pain? Deaton had said something about minds and feelings and insinuation but—Stiles had just said something about choices and Derek. Derek had had enough choices taken away. Even little choices, like Stiles trying to figure out what he was thinking so he’d know the right way to respond? Maybe it mattered, bigger than it might some other time.

His head hurt. Among other things.

“I don’t want to be a werewolf. I … wanted to be able to stop him, what he was doing, but I didn’t want to have to be a werewolf to do it, not if it meant…” Stiles sighed. He’d long since given up wondering what he smelled like, what his heartbeat sounded like, what they thought he was feeling or thinking—gods knew it was an impossible problem for Stiles half the time, except for the simple shit like oh-my-god-panic or get-the-fuck-off-him-I’ll-kill-you-rage. 

Whatever it was, he still somehow ended up with werewolves around. He tried again. “I am not the most well-hinged person myself and I didn’t, I still, not like, so. No, I mean. I get it. He’s trying. He’s your family. He’s even being useful and not flirting with me right now which is good because that actively makes me sick to my stomach, and, and, it’s not the gay thing though I know that’s a wolf thing not gay but anyway, still. Derek, I’m sorry, even if he was being sincere, or lucid, or whatever it was, I just. No. I will eviscerate the shit out of him if he hurts any more of our friends, and if he so much as looks at her the wrong way and Lydia decides she wants to plant him back in the ground, I will not raise a hand to stop her, because he took away so many people’s choices, whether he was crazy or not. He’s not a threat to Scott, because he thinks Scott’s useless, but…” and black hole, there, feelings, “he’s a threat. Even if he’s not thinking about being one right now, and right now his intentions are good.”

Derek’s growl was sub-audible, but Stiles could feel it—in his bones, in that pack bond that was growing and creeping him right the fuck out because all Deaton would say was “It’s early for that kind of thing, yet, but I suppose that it’s good,”—and he stood, slowly backed off. Derek’s growl backed off, and he grabbed the hem of Stiles’ shorts.

“No. Stiles. He. He wants power, he saw something, you had it a long time before I did, I don’t even know how it would work if you were a wolf.” His expression was bleak, like he was thinking of something else, something that didn’t have to do, for once, with his usual hangdog _my whole family is dead and it’s all my fault_ expression. He let go of Stiles’ shorts, then, and looked out over the lake. 

“It just looks like a lake,” he said, then rubbed his hand over his hair. “My dad used to come down and talk to whoever lives here, he… could do that, too, even if he wasn't as powerful, but… I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing sometimes.”

Any other time, Stiles would laugh. Laugh hysterically, because Derek Hale, buck-naked alpha wolf and pinnacle of apex predator perfection, had just a) admitted that Stiles was right, and b) admitted that he didn’t know what he was doing and c) willingly told Stiles something about his family that didn’t have to do with the fire or some imminent danger they happened to be in, and Stiles had long ago given up any hope, whatsoever, of anything besides an uneasy truce between them to keep the town from exploding because clearly, there was something in the water.

And clearly, there was.

Hah.

But Stiles didn’t laugh.

“I have no idea either,” he said, instead. And because Derek had given him something, intangible and very real, and there were rules about these kinds of things, Stiles was learning, he added. “It scares the shit out of me.”

Derek cocked an eyebrow and shrugged. “My sister used to read these horrible self help books when we were going to school. One of them was called something like _Feel the Fear, Do it Anyway_ , I don’t know. I always thought it was bullshit, and the wolf was supposed to help us figure it out.” His frown was kind of wobbly. “But. It kind of makes sense. Even if it sounds like a shitty Nike commercial. And you usually do figure it out. Which is good.”

He had dropped down to all fours and shifted back into the Alpha form—and goddamnit, getting in the last word, asshole sourwolf, even if it was a compliment, and of course Derek’s wolf was enormous and black with little bits of silvery grey and his eyes were—Derek’s eyes, not alpha-red, because hey, hangin’ at the lake, whatever, and he shrugged a wolf-shoulder that came up to Stiles’ waist because did Stiles mention Derek’s wolf-form was huge?—and then trotted into the woods with this look on his path that said, clear as day, “C’mon, Stiles, packs to whip into shape, curly fries to eat, dude.”

Well. Not maybe the dude, but still. The idea was there.

Huh.

Derek thought he usually had a handle on things. 

That was something, something to put a bit of a spring in his wicked, wicked tired step.

He settled into a jog, the late dusk quiet and calm around them as they took a slow path back to—well, probably Derek’s, dude would need clothes and his place was between the lake and Stiles’ house. 

It was quiet. The light was soft. Blue. Almost magic.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who are interested in world-building things (and still reading, thank you to all who have commented, left kudos, and just plain old opened this series) the magic in this series follows no particular rules, because all canon tells us is all Stiles has to do is believe, and that there are herbs and things. So I am going to let Stiles make it up as he goes along and see what makes sense to him-- because that's what Stiles does best.


End file.
